


Service, Sacrifice

by knightinmourning



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Anxiety, Character Study, Gen, Post episode s02e12 Through the Valley of Shadows, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 15:49:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18391502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightinmourning/pseuds/knightinmourning
Summary: Spoilers for 2x12.Chris has returned to the Enterprise, but continues to struggle with the future he has seen for himself.





	Service, Sacrifice

Christopher Pike had never been one to believe in fate.  
  
Growing up, his world had been a complicated mix of science and religion, a war of the worlds in ways that had challenged him intellectually, morally, and philosophically. As much as his father had frustrated him, it was influence of both of his parents that molded Chris into the man he was today.  
  
_Service, sacrifice, compassion, and love_.  
  
These were good, solid morals to live your life on, regardless of your deity. Chris knew that, and he tried to live every day with those in mind. Even in the face of a fate more terrible than he could ever have imagined. It was these pillars that kept him moving now, day in and day out, and had ever since his time in Boreth. Months had passed. He’d returned to the Enterprise and every day he thought about his future. His fate.  
  
Plenty of religions had figures who served as martyrs, who made a variety of sacrifices to protect their followers and the things they believed in. But Chris was no martyr. No one would ever know his sacrifice, if he could help it. Besides, though Tenavik had explained that the future couldn’t be changed if Chris took the time crystal, who was to say that it wouldn’t have happened anyway? Messing with time was complicated, and Chris figured his best option was to just not think too hard about it.  
  
Which would be much easier if he didn’t think about it all the damn time. This is what always happens, you try not to think about something, so you end up thinking about it more. The face was the worst part, he thought. Burned, twisted flesh, melting from the bone. He knew it was his imagination running away with the scene, spiralling off from the horror of the initial accident, and the shock of seeing the aftermath. That didn’t stop the image from settling just behind his eyes, a constant visual in his head as he went about his days.  
  
He had never doubted his willingness to give his life to save a fellow officer, but the idea of being alive and left with... well, nothing, from what he could tell, seemed like a horror too much for anyone to bear.  
  
But still, he didn't want to die. There was something in him that would rather he lived through this, than try to stop it, retire early or kill himself or...  _something_. Chris wanted to live, and he knew that meant living with whatever time threw at him. No matter how terrifying that might future might be.  
  
Chris had tried to hide all of this away, tried to be his usual self first on Discovery, and then when he returned to the Enterprise as well, but he knew he was foundering. More serious and steely than usual, even snapping at Tilly only a few days before he’d departed. Though he’d managed an apology, he knew that his new crew had noticed something was up, and the looks Spock was giving him suggested that he had guessed what the captain had given up in exchange for the time crystal.  
  
_Free will_. _The ability to control my own future. Or, at least, the privilege of not knowing my future_.  
  
How nice is it to not know what will become of you? To not know where you’ll be in a year, or five, or twenty? He remembered himself just eighteen months before, being kept off the front lines of a war he desperately wanted to help fight. Never knowing that in just a few months he’d be the captain of the Discovery, fighting a whole new battle with much bigger consequences.  
  
They’d saved the universe, and Chris wasn’t the only one who hadn’t made it out unscathed. Burnham and Spock, Culber and Stamets, L’Rell and Tyler, _Leland and Ariam_...  
  
The list went on, and as he considered it, he felt guilt bubble up in his stomach and chest. Compared to what, say, Burnham had lost - her mother, for a second time - the fact that he was so worked up over seeing something that wouldn’t happen for many years seemed almost nonsensical.  
  
_Selfish_.  
  
But the fact was that he too was mourning something, grieving for a future that he’d imagined for himself. Maybe with a family, a farm with some horses, retired from Starfleet and happy to live the quiet country life.  
  
How he longed for a lunchtime ride with Tango. A picnic with just the two of them, where he could lose himself to the cadence of the powerful gelding carrying him to their favorite spot, just out of town. They’d spent hours each day in Mojave’s long summers exploring, and Chris had always figured that once he was done with Starfleet, he might take the opportunity to get a couple foals and train the for riding and driving. That was no longer a possibility.  
  
Chris’s chest tightened at the thought of never riding again, and he took a few moments to consciously deepen his breaths. Mindful breathing was something he’d learned at the academy, and it was working well enough for him even now. Which was good, because he wasn’t about to explain to Boyce why he suddenly needed hypos for anxiety on the regular.  
  
Boyce wasn’t beyond getting him drunk as a way to relax and tell the doctor what was going on, but he was hoping to avoid that conversation for the time being.  
  
Instead, he kept his anxiety hidden away where no one else would see it. The Enterprise didn’t have a ready room, so he spent much of his time in his quarters already. It wasn’t unusual for him to duck out and spend some time in his “office” - really just a corner of his quarters - so he had an easy excuse when he needed to make an escape from the bridge and regroup.  
  
His breathing calmed, and a few minutes later the twisting in his stomach subsided to a dull ache. It’d be a few hours before he felt “normal” again, if he could even call it normal anymore, when he seemed to feel out of sorts more often than not. Functional, at least, Chris supposed. At least he wasn’t scheduled to be on the bridge for another hour. He’d have time to calm down a little more.  
  
The chime of the ship’s internal comm system spooked him out of his thoughts less than half an hour later. _“Captain Pike to the bridge.”  
  
_“Be right there, Number One,” Chris responded, taking only a slight delay to find his voice. Coming back into himself, he noticed his eyes stinging and reached up to find the remnants of drying tears on his cheeks.  
  
He crossed the room to the sink, quickly washing and drying his face and taking a moment to straighten his uniform before leaving his quarters for the bridge.  
  
_Day by day, moment by moment. I chose this life, for better or worse, and I will serve with pride until that is taken from me and my debt to time is paid. It is my duty and my honor._


End file.
